Lotem, founded in 1991 and directed today by Amos Ziv, says it is filling a gap that official systems and bureaucracies leave behind: access to nature for people with physical, cognitive, emotional and sensory disabilities. The organization runs nature trips, workshops and activity groups, and Ziv says everyone deserves to experience nature because it is “a necessity, not a luxury.”
Who Gets Access, and Who Has to Fight for It
Ziv said Lotem operates nationwide, with offices in Yokne’am, Jerusalem and Beersheba, and that during times of crisis its teams operate in over 25 locations nationwide, including hotels and kibbutzim hosting evacuees. He said the organization serves over 100,000 people annually. Its nature-based retreats support survivors of trauma and terrorism, as well as soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Its “Integra-Teva” program brings together diverse groups, including Jews and Arabs, to learn ancient agricultural techniques.
Lotem also operates an in-service training center for professionals from the government and the private sector to better integrate people with special needs into society. The organization’s trips take place in small groups accompanied by trained guides with experience working with a variety of disabilities. Ziv said Lotem has 60 workers, including paid employees and volunteers, among them young women fulfilling national service.
The organization’s work is framed as empowerment, but the need for it is tied to a society where access is uneven and often blocked by institutions. Blum said many sites meet legal standards but are difficult for the disabled to reach. She said the quiet in nature helps people breathe deeply and that being among trees, plants and open skies is essential for mental health support.
Bureaucracy, Budgets, and the Price of “Inclusion”
Blum said Lotem works with the Nature and Park Authority, the Antiquities Authority and others, but there is a lot of bureaucracy. She said some organizations set up one accessible picnic table and claim they do not have enough budget, and that some authorities are just lazy. Since Oct. 7, the organization has seen a dramatic increase in demand for its service because there is a lot more emotional distress, Blum said.
She said Lotem’s annual budget is about NIS 10 million and that it is currently short NIS 800,000. She said Israeli banks donate very little and that the low dollar-shekel exchange rate has hurt the organization because most contributions are in dollars from donors abroad, while bills are paid in shekels. Participants pay only a small amount for excursions. Ziv said the organization wants organizations, businesses and individuals to “adopt” a disabled child or an activity and to be partners, not just donors.
The funding picture is a familiar one: public need, private patchwork, and a constant scramble to keep services alive. Among the projects donors can support is the Mother Nature Program, a safe and restorative day-long outdoor experience for mothers and their children who are victims of domestic violence. It includes hiking, cooking and art workshops that help promote trust and self confidence; a weekly nature club in schools for those who cannot leave their indoor environments regularly; and class field trips.
What People Built Outside the Usual Channels
Lotem’s own infrastructure shows what self-organization can look like when people actually build access instead of merely talking about it. Ziv said the organization created a 1.5 km. trail at the Hashofet Stream near Yokne’am with assistance from Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund. The path is stroller- and wheelchair friendly and includes an old flour mill, a bridge, a waterfall, wood benches and picnic tables. Ziv said a million people, more than at Masada, trek there every year.
Lotem’s Valley of Peace park is in the Menashe Heights just outside Yokne’am Illit. It is a 40-acre nature reserve and historic ecological farm with a wheelchair-accessible education center. Children with disabilities can press grapes with their feet and crush olives to make oil while appreciating and connecting with nature. The organization also runs school trips for people with special needs. Ziv said some 65% of all schools, including special-education frameworks, as well as pupils at Jerusalem’s Alyn Rehabilitation Center for Children and Youth, Ilan, Shalva, Akim, and adults with disabilities, participate throughout the year. Special groups, including organizations for children at risk and women in battered women’s shelters, are invited to take part.
Lotem was involved with the kibbutzim and moshavim on the Gaza border before the Hamas-led terror onslaught of Oct. 7. Immediately after that, the organization sent teams to evacuees in hotels and kibbutz guest houses, taking them on nature trips and vacations to help calm them. Ziv said the most logistically complicated trip it ever ran involved older women over several days who were pushed around in wheelchairs and required liquified food, toilets at the right height, moving beds, sign-language translators and help for the blind.
The organization’s board is chaired by Sorin Hershko, 70, an Israeli hero and paratrooper who served on the assault team during the 1976 Operation Entebbe hostage rescue mission. He was severely wounded during the raid, sustaining a spinal injury that left him permanently paralyzed from the neck down.
Lives Rebuilt, One Trip at a Time
Ziv recalled a participant named Raz, who was eight years old when he was seriously injured in a road accident. Raz was connected to an oxygen tank, in a wheelchair, and able to move only one hand. He lived in the Alyn Orthopedic Hospital and Rehabilitation Center for two years. At 18, he wanted to do national service and joined Lotem, where he taught himself English. Now in his 30s, he took the Tourism Ministry official guide’s course and was licensed. He said, “Nature does not judge you. You can be whoever you are and whatever you want. That is why Lotem is so important!”
Einav Blum, Lotem’s deputy director-general for education and an occupational therapist, said the organization works a lot with soldiers who were physically injured and suffer from post-trauma, working with their family, horses and specially-trained dogs. She said she was inspired to join because both her brother and a sister are disabled, physically and cognitively. Blum said one father told the team that his child was a different person after participating in the activities. She said there were kids who refused to speak but during the trek they said some words.
She said one girl who suffered from anorexia was hospitalized in Jerusalem but was unwilling to cooperate with the doctors and nurses. The organization ran a nature club there, bringing leaves and little animals for her to see. She said the girl waited all week with anticipation for the team to come and was finally discharged in better health. Blum said, “Those moments of peace help calm our racing thoughts. And when we’re feeling down or anxious, a simple walk in nature can lift our spirits.”
Jacob Milstein, a fifth-generation farmer from Kibbutz Merhavia in the North, said his connection with Lotem was lifesaving. He said he was looking for work outside the farm and saw an ad for a maintenance manager at the non-profit organization’s Emek Hashalom farm. He wanted to work in an open space, accessible to all, close to nature and with a connection to the therapeutic field. On Tu Bishvat, after a long day full of visitors at the Emek Hashalom farm, Milstein returned home from another fulfilling day at work, ready to sit on his terrace with a cup of coffee and enjoy the beautiful sunset.
He said, “I suddenly felt something strange: I wanted to go straight, but my body went to the right side. I also began to feel restless, as if I was uncomfortable anywhere I turned.” An ambulance took him to the hospital, where he had a CT scan. The doctor told him, “Mr. Milstein, you are having a stroke.” Milstein said, “I didn’t notice that my hand and leg were already paralyzed, but when I tried to get out of bed, I fell to the floor, paralyzed in half of my body. I became depressed. One day at the hospital, Amos Ziv came to visit. After 10 minutes, he said: ‘Jacob, your job with us is reserved for you. When you recover, you will come back to us, and together we will find the right place for you.’”
Milstein said that after a long rehabilitation process, he felt he was on the road to recovery and slowly moved from a wheelchair to a treadmill and then to a cane. He said that at first he gave lectures at Lotem as a volunteer, but after a while the director of Lotem’s accessibility department asked if he wanted to be a Lotem staff member. He said it was one of the most moving sentences he had ever heard in his life. Milstein said he went back to work as an instructor and that his physical, mental and cognitive abilities improved greatly. He said, “With all the love I had for people with special needs, and my willingness to help them, I still consider my life experience today of a person with special needs. Even when I forget about it, life reminds me.” He said, “I know what people with special needs go through. I’m more aware of when they need help. I’ve discovered something new that I am good at, which is an amazing feeling.” He thanked Lotem, “this amazing place, this special team, and the people of JNF-USA who support Lotem and allow this special miracle to exist in the world and illuminate the world in a better light.”